Workflow support for dynamic action output

ABSTRACT

Persistent storage may contain metadata actions and integration actions related to a remote service, wherein the remote service includes a remote service application programming interface (API) that provides access to structured data, and a metadata API that provides access to a schema of the structured data. Processors may be configured to: (i) generate and provide, for metadata action design graphical user interfaces (GUIs), options for specification of a metadata action, where the metadata action defines a metadata query to the metadata API, rules for parsing the schema, and a normalized format for the structured data; (ii) generate and provide, for integration action design GUIs, options for specification of an integration action, where the integration action defines a structured data query to the remote service API and an indication that the metadata action is to be used to represent a result of the structured data query in the normalized format.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of and claims priority to U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 16/773,568, filed Jan. 27, 2020, issued as U.S.Pat. No. 10,929,107 on Feb. 23, 2021, which is a continuation-in-part ofand claims priority to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/592,216,filed Oct. 3, 2019, issued as U.S. Pat. No. 10,809,982 on Oct. 20, 2020,which is a continuation of and claims priority to U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 16/358,148, filed Mar. 19, 2019, issued as U.S.Pat. No. 10,452,360 on Oct. 22, 2019, all of which are herebyincorporated by reference in their entireties for all purposes.

BACKGROUND

A workflow is a specific sequence or series of tasks that, whenperformed, seeks to accomplish one or more goals. In some cases,workflows may be represented or thought of as a state machine having twoor more states connected by various transitions therebetween.Transitions from state to state may be triggered by or based on userinput, automated input, information being stored in a database, thevalue of information in a database changing, or by way of othermechanisms. Workflows may be supported by way of a remote networkmanagement platform that provides a web-based interface for workflowdefinition, execution, and management.

Enterprise workflows may integrate information from various sources,including from remote services hosted on third-party servers outside ofthe remote network management platform and the enterprise. For example,a workflow applying a particular information technology (IT) policy toan enterprise user's computing device or account may consider thecapabilities of the computing device as well as the user's profile andaccess permissions. The former information may be stored locally withinthe remote network management platform, and is thus readily availableand under control of the enterprise. On the other hand, the latterinformation may be outsourced to a remote service.

In order to obtain the user's profile and access permissions, the remotenetwork management platform may be configured with appropriatecredentials to access the remote service, as well as a schema thereofthat defines tables, fields, forms, application programming interfaces,and so on that contain the sought-after information. Nonetheless, theremote service or the enterprise may, from time to time, change thisschema. If the remote network management platform does not adapt itsaccess requests accordingly, its workflows will either fail or be unableto access all of the information available by way of the remote service.

SUMMARY

The embodiments herein provide graphical user interfaces (GUIs) andother mechanisms to integrate with a remote service that storessought-after information in a schema that may be unknown to the workflowdesigner and/or that may change from time to time. These GUIs allow anaction of a workflow to be defined with dynamic output, so that theworkflow can adapt to these changes. Advantageously, this allowsworkflows to be defined in a flexible, no-code fashion. In particular,actions incorporated into a workflow during workflow design are nothard-coded to a specific version of the schema. Therefore, these actionscan provide the workflow designer with options to fully utilize theschema as it exists during workflow design, e.g., by introspecting theremote service's current schema.

In particular, the embodiments herein may relate to three distinctphases: design of a metadata action that obtains a definition of aschema of structured data accessible by way of a remote serviceapplication programming interface (API), design of an integration actionthat obtains information from the remote service by using the remoteservice API, and design of a workflow a carries out a specific task byincorporating these two actions. Doing so may cause, during the workflowdesign phase, dynamic retrieval of information from the metadata APIregarding the capabilities of the remote service API. Examples of thisinclude a list of tables accessible by way of the API, and lists ofcolumns in these tables. Operations on one or more of these tablesand/or columns may be added to the workflow. The workflow may be furtherdefined with additional flows, subflows, and actions. A definition ofthe workflow may be stored to memory.

During subsequent workflow execution, a trigger event may cause theworkflow to begin execution. When the integration action is performed,it may carry out the operations on the tables and/or columns as definedin the workflow.

In this fashion, a user can incorporate integration actions thatmanipulate specific data accessible by way of the remote service APIwithout having to write program code to support this accessing andmanipulating. Instead, actions with dynamic output, as well as workflowsincorporating these actions, can be defined in a no-code fashion and byway of a GUI. This dramatically decreases the amount of time needed toprovide workflow support for a remote service API.

Accordingly, a first example embodiment may involve persistent storageconfigured to store definitions of metadata actions and integrationactions related to a remote service, wherein the remote service includesa remote service API that provides access to structured data, andwherein the remote service includes a metadata API that provides accessto a schema of the structured data. The first example embodiment mayalso involve one or more processors configured to perform operationsthat comprise: (i) generating and providing, for display on a set ofmetadata action design GUIs, options that allow specification of ametadata action involving the remote service, wherein the metadataaction defines a metadata query to the metadata API, rules for parsingthe schema of the structured data, and a normalized format for thestructured data; (ii) generating and providing, for display on a set ofintegration action design GUIs, options that allow specification of anintegration action involving the remote service, wherein the integrationaction defines a structured data query to the remote service API and anindication that the metadata action is to be used to represent a resultof the structured data query in the normalized format; and (iii)writing, to the persistent storage, representations of the metadataaction and the integration action.

A second example embodiment may involve generating and providing, by acomputing device and for display on a set of metadata action designGUIs, options that allow specification of a metadata action involving aremote service, wherein the metadata action defines: (i) a metadataquery to a metadata API of the remote service, (ii) rules for parsing aschema of structured data provided by the metadata API, and (iii) anormalized format for the structured data. The second example embodimentmay also involve generating and providing, by the computing device andfor display on a set of integration action design GUIs, options thatallow specification of an integration action involving the remoteservice, wherein the integration action defines: (i) a structured dataquery to a remote service API of the remote service that provides accessto the structured data, and (ii) an indication that the metadata actionis to be used to represent a result of the structured data query in thenormalized format. The second example embodiment may also involvewriting, by the computing device and to persistent storage,representations of the metadata action and the integration action.

In a third example embodiment, an article of manufacture may include anon-transitory computer-readable medium, having stored thereon programinstructions that, upon execution by a computing system, cause thecomputing system to perform operations in accordance with the firstand/or second example embodiment.

In a fourth example embodiment, a computing system may include at leastone processor, as well as memory and program instructions. The programinstructions may be stored in the memory, and upon execution by the atleast one processor, cause the computing system to perform operations inaccordance with the first and/or second example embodiment.

In a fifth example embodiment, a system may include various means forcarrying out each of the operations of the first and/or second exampleembodiment.

These, as well as other embodiments, aspects, advantages, andalternatives, will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the artby reading the following detailed description, with reference whereappropriate to the accompanying drawings. Further, this summary andother descriptions and figures provided herein are intended toillustrate embodiments by way of example only and, as such, thatnumerous variations are possible. For instance, structural elements andprocess steps can be rearranged, combined, distributed, eliminated, orotherwise changed, while remaining within the scope of the embodimentsas claimed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic drawing of a computing device, inaccordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 2 illustrates a schematic drawing of a server device cluster, inaccordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 3 depicts a remote network management architecture, in accordancewith example embodiments.

FIG. 4 depicts a communication environment involving a remote networkmanagement architecture, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 5A depicts another communication environment involving a remotenetwork management architecture, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 5B is a flow chart, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIGS. 6A, 6B, 6C, 6D, 6E, 6F, 6G, 6H, 6I, 6J, and 6K depict workflowdesign tool graphical user interfaces, in accordance with exampleembodiments.

FIG. 7A depicts phases of metadata action design, integration actiondesign, workflow design, and workflow execution, in accordance withexample embodiments.

FIG. 7B is a message flow diagram for phases of metadata action design,integration action design, workflow design, and workflow execution, inaccordance with example embodiments.

FIGS. 8A, 8B, 8C, and 8D depict graphical user interfaces for designinga metadata action, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIGS. 9A, 9B, 9C, and 9D depict graphical user interfaces for designingan integration action, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIGS. 10A, 10B, and 10C depict graphical user interfaces for designing aworkflow, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 11 is a flow chart, in accordance with example embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Example methods, devices, and systems are described herein. It should beunderstood that the words “example” and “exemplary” are used herein tomean “serving as an example, instance, or illustration.” Any embodimentor feature described herein as being an “example” or “exemplary” is notnecessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over otherembodiments or features unless stated as such. Thus, other embodimentscan be utilized and other changes can be made without departing from thescope of the subject matter presented herein.

Accordingly, the example embodiments described herein are not meant tobe limiting. It will be readily understood that the aspects of thepresent disclosure, as generally described herein, and illustrated inthe figures, can be arranged, substituted, combined, separated, anddesigned in a wide variety of different configurations. For example, theseparation of features into “client” and “server” components may occurin a number of ways.

Further, unless context suggests otherwise, the features illustrated ineach of the figures may be used in combination with one another. Thus,the figures should be generally viewed as component aspects of one ormore overall embodiments, with the understanding that not allillustrated features are necessary for each embodiment.

Additionally, any enumeration of elements, blocks, or steps in thisspecification or the claims is for purposes of clarity. Thus, suchenumeration should not be interpreted to require or imply that theseelements, blocks, or steps adhere to a particular arrangement or arecarried out in a particular order.

I. Introduction

A large enterprise is a complex entity with many interrelatedoperations. Some of these are found across the enterprise, such as humanresources (HR), supply chain, information technology (IT), and finance.However, each enterprise also has its own unique operations that provideessential capabilities and/or create competitive advantages.

To support widely-implemented operations, enterprises typically useoff-the-shelf software applications, such as customer relationshipmanagement (CRM) and human capital management (HCM) packages. However,they may also need custom software applications to meet their own uniquerequirements. A large enterprise often has dozens or hundreds of thesecustom software applications. Nonetheless, the advantages provided bythe embodiments herein are not limited to large enterprises and may beapplicable to an enterprise, or any other type of organization, of anysize.

Many such software applications are developed by individual departmentswithin the enterprise. These range from simple spreadsheets tocustom-built software tools and databases. But the proliferation ofsiloed custom software applications has numerous disadvantages. Itnegatively impacts an enterprise's ability to run and grow itsoperations, innovate, and meet regulatory requirements. The enterprisemay find it difficult to integrate, streamline and enhance itsoperations due to lack of a single system that unifies its subsystemsand data.

To efficiently create custom applications, enterprises would benefitfrom a remotely-hosted application platform that eliminates unnecessarydevelopment complexity. The goal of such a platform would be to reducetime-consuming, repetitive application development tasks so thatsoftware engineers and individuals in other roles can focus ondeveloping unique, high-value features.

In order to achieve this goal, the concept of Application Platform as aService (aPaaS) is introduced, to intelligently automate workflowsthroughout the enterprise. An aPaaS system is hosted remotely from theenterprise, but may access data, applications, and services within theenterprise by way of secure connections. Such an aPaaS system may have anumber of advantageous capabilities and characteristics. Theseadvantages and characteristics may be able to improve the enterprise'soperations and workflow for IT, HR, CRM, customer service, applicationdevelopment, and security.

The aPaaS system may support development and execution ofmodel-view-controller (MVC) applications. MVC applications divide theirfunctionality into three interconnected parts (model, view, andcontroller) in order to isolate representations of information from themanner in which the information is presented to the user, therebyallowing for efficient code reuse and parallel development. Theseapplications may be web-based, and offer create, read, update, delete(CRUD) capabilities. This allows new applications to be built on acommon application infrastructure.

The aPaaS system may support standardized application components, suchas a standardized set of widgets for graphical user interface (GUI)development. In this way, applications built using the aPaaS system havea common look and feel. Other software components and modules may bestandardized as well. In some cases, this look and feel can be brandedor skinned with an enterprise's custom logos and/or color schemes.

The aPaaS system may support the ability to configure the behavior ofapplications using metadata. This allows application behaviors to berapidly adapted to meet specific needs. Such an approach reducesdevelopment time and increases flexibility. Further, the aPaaS systemmay support GUI tools that facilitate metadata creation and management,thus reducing errors in the metadata.

The aPaaS system may support clearly-defined interfaces betweenapplications, so that software developers can avoid unwantedinter-application dependencies. Thus, the aPaaS system may implement aservice layer in which persistent state information and other data arestored.

The aPaaS system may support a rich set of integration features so thatthe applications thereon can interact with legacy applications andthird-party applications. For instance, the aPaaS system may support acustom employee-onboarding system that integrates with legacy HR, IT,and accounting systems.

The aPaaS system may support enterprise-grade security. Furthermore,since the aPaaS system may be remotely hosted, it should also utilizesecurity procedures when it interacts with systems in the enterprise orthird-party networks and services hosted outside of the enterprise. Forexample, the aPaaS system may be configured to share data amongst theenterprise and other parties to detect and identify common securitythreats.

Other features, functionality, and advantages of an aPaaS system mayexist. This description is for purpose of example and is not intended tobe limiting.

As an example of the aPaaS development process, a software developer maybe tasked to create a new application using the aPaaS system. First, thedeveloper may define the data model, which specifies the types of datathat the application uses and the relationships therebetween. Then, viaa GUI of the aPaaS system, the developer enters (e.g., uploads) the datamodel. The aPaaS system automatically creates all of the correspondingdatabase tables, fields, and relationships, which can then be accessedvia an object-oriented services layer.

In addition, the aPaaS system can also build a fully-functional MVCapplication with client-side interfaces and server-side CRUD logic. Thisgenerated application may serve as the basis of further development forthe user. Advantageously, the developer does not have to spend a largeamount of time on basic application functionality. Further, since theapplication may be web-based, it can be accessed from anyInternet-enabled client device. Alternatively or additionally, a localcopy of the application may be able to be accessed, for instance, whenInternet service is not available.

The aPaaS system may also support a rich set of pre-definedfunctionality that can be added to applications. These features includesupport for searching, email, templating, workflow design, reporting,analytics, social media, scripting, mobile-friendly output, andcustomized GUIs.

The following embodiments describe architectural and functional aspectsof example aPaaS systems, as well as the features and advantagesthereof.

II. Example Computing Devices and Cloud-Based Computing Environments

FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram exemplifying a computing device100, illustrating some of the components that could be included in acomputing device arranged to operate in accordance with the embodimentsherein. Computing device 100 could be a client device (e.g., a deviceactively operated by a user), a server device (e.g., a device thatprovides computational services to client devices), or some other typeof computational platform. Some server devices may operate as clientdevices from time to time in order to perform particular operations, andsome client devices may incorporate server features.

In this example, computing device 100 includes processor 102, memory104, network interface 106, and an input/output unit 108, all of whichmay be coupled by a system bus 110 or a similar mechanism. In someembodiments, computing device 100 may include other components and/orperipheral devices (e.g., detachable storage, printers, and so on).

Processor 102 may be one or more of any type of computer processingelement, such as a central processing unit (CPU), a co-processor (e.g.,a mathematics, graphics, or encryption co-processor), a digital signalprocessor (DSP), a network processor, and/or a form of integratedcircuit or controller that performs processor operations. In some cases,processor 102 may be one or more single-core processors. In other cases,processor 102 may be one or more multi-core processors with multipleindependent processing units. Processor 102 may also include registermemory for temporarily storing instructions being executed and relateddata, as well as cache memory for temporarily storing recently-usedinstructions and data.

Memory 104 may be any form of computer-usable memory, including but notlimited to random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), andnon-volatile memory (e.g., flash memory, hard disk drives, solid statedrives, compact discs (CDs), digital video discs (DVDs), and/or tapestorage). Thus, memory 104 represents both main memory units, as well aslong-term storage. Other types of memory may include biological memory.

Memory 104 may store program instructions and/or data on which programinstructions may operate. By way of example, memory 104 may store theseprogram instructions on a non-transitory, computer-readable medium, suchthat the instructions are executable by processor 102 to carry out anyof the methods, processes, or operations disclosed in this specificationor the accompanying drawings.

As shown in FIG. 1, memory 104 may include firmware 104A, kernel 104B,and/or applications 104C. Firmware 104A may be program code used to bootor otherwise initiate some or all of computing device 100. Kernel 104Bmay be an operating system, including modules for memory management,scheduling and management of processes, input/output, and communication.Kernel 104B may also include device drivers that allow the operatingsystem to communicate with the hardware modules (e.g., memory units,networking interfaces, ports, and busses), of computing device 100.Applications 104C may be one or more user-space software programs, suchas web browsers or email clients, as well as any software libraries usedby these programs. Memory 104 may also store data used by these andother programs and applications.

Network interface 106 may take the form of one or more wirelineinterfaces, such as Ethernet (e.g., Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, andso on). Network interface 106 may also support communication over one ormore non-Ethernet media, such as coaxial cables or power lines, or overwide-area media, such as Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET) ordigital subscriber line (DSL) technologies. Network interface 106 mayadditionally take the form of one or more wireless interfaces, such asIEEE 802.11 (Wifi), BLUETOOTH®, global positioning system (GPS), or awide-area wireless interface. However, other forms of physical layerinterfaces and other types of standard or proprietary communicationprotocols may be used over network interface 106. Furthermore, networkinterface 106 may comprise multiple physical interfaces. For instance,some embodiments of computing device 100 may include Ethernet,BLUETOOTH®, and Wifi interfaces.

Input/output unit 108 may facilitate user and peripheral deviceinteraction with computing device 100. Input/output unit 108 may includeone or more types of input devices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, a touchscreen, and so on. Similarly, input/output unit 108 may include one ormore types of output devices, such as a screen, monitor, printer, and/orone or more light emitting diodes (LEDs). Additionally or alternatively,computing device 100 may communicate with other devices using auniversal serial bus (USB) or high-definition multimedia interface(HDMI) port interface, for example.

In some embodiments, one or more computing devices like computing device100 may be deployed to support an aPaaS architecture. The exact physicallocation, connectivity, and configuration of these computing devices maybe unknown and/or unimportant to client devices. Accordingly, thecomputing devices may be referred to as “cloud-based” devices that maybe housed at various remote data center locations.

FIG. 2 depicts a cloud-based server cluster 200 in accordance withexample embodiments. In FIG. 2, operations of a computing device (e.g.,computing device 100) may be distributed between server devices 202,data storage 204, and routers 206, all of which may be connected bylocal cluster network 208. The number of server devices 202, datastorages 204, and routers 206 in server cluster 200 may depend on thecomputing task(s) and/or applications assigned to server cluster 200.

For example, server devices 202 can be configured to perform variouscomputing tasks of computing device 100. Thus, computing tasks can bedistributed among one or more of server devices 202. To the extent thatthese computing tasks can be performed in parallel, such a distributionof tasks may reduce the total time to complete these tasks and return aresult. For purpose of simplicity, both server cluster 200 andindividual server devices 202 may be referred to as a “server device.”This nomenclature should be understood to imply that one or moredistinct server devices, data storage devices, and cluster routers maybe involved in server device operations.

Data storage 204 may be data storage arrays that include drive arraycontrollers configured to manage read and write access to groups of harddisk drives and/or solid state drives. The drive array controllers,alone or in conjunction with server devices 202, may also be configuredto manage backup or redundant copies of the data stored in data storage204 to protect against drive failures or other types of failures thatprevent one or more of server devices 202 from accessing units of datastorage 204. Other types of memory aside from drives may be used.

Routers 206 may include networking equipment configured to provideinternal and external communications for server cluster 200. Forexample, routers 206 may include one or more packet-switching and/orrouting devices (including switches and/or gateways) configured toprovide (i) network communications between server devices 202 and datastorage 204 via local cluster network 208, and/or (ii) networkcommunications between the server cluster 200 and other devices viacommunication link 210 to network 212.

Additionally, the configuration of routers 206 can be based at least inpart on the data communication requirements of server devices 202 anddata storage 204, the latency and throughput of the local clusternetwork 208, the latency, throughput, and cost of communication link210, and/or other factors that may contribute to the cost, speed,fault-tolerance, resiliency, efficiency and/or other design goals of thesystem architecture.

As a possible example, data storage 204 may include any form ofdatabase, such as a structured query language (SQL) database. Varioustypes of data structures may store the information in such a database,including but not limited to tables, arrays, lists, trees, and tuples.Furthermore, any databases in data storage 204 may be monolithic ordistributed across multiple physical devices.

Server devices 202 may be configured to transmit data to and receivedata from data storage 204. This transmission and retrieval may take theform of SQL queries or other types of database queries, and the outputof such queries, respectively. Additional text, images, video, and/oraudio may be included as well. Furthermore, server devices 202 mayorganize the received data into web page representations. Such arepresentation may take the form of a markup language, such as thehypertext markup language (HTML), the extensible markup language (XML),or some other standardized or proprietary format. Moreover, serverdevices 202 may have the capability of executing various types ofcomputerized scripting languages, such as but not limited to Perl,Python, PHP Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), Active Server Pages (ASP),JAVASCRIPT®, and so on. Computer program code written in these languagesmay facilitate the providing of web pages to client devices, as well asclient device interaction with the web pages.

III. Example Remote Network Management Architecture

FIG. 3 depicts a remote network management architecture, in accordancewith example embodiments. This architecture includes three maincomponents, managed network 300, remote network management platform 320,and third-party networks 340, all connected by way of Internet 350.

Managed network 300 may be, for example, an enterprise network used byan entity for computing and communications tasks, as well as storage ofdata. Thus, managed network 300 may include client devices 302, serverdevices 304, routers 306, virtual machines 308, firewall 310, and/orproxy servers 312. Client devices 302 may be embodied by computingdevice 100, server devices 304 may be embodied by computing device 100or server cluster 200, and routers 306 may be any type of router,switch, or gateway.

Virtual machines 308 may be embodied by one or more of computing device100 or server cluster 200. In general, a virtual machine is an emulationof a computing system, and mimics the functionality (e.g., processor,memory, and communication resources) of a physical computer. Onephysical computing system, such as server cluster 200, may support up tothousands of individual virtual machines. In some embodiments, virtualmachines 308 may be managed by a centralized server device orapplication that facilitates allocation of physical computing resourcesto individual virtual machines, as well as performance and errorreporting. Enterprises often employ virtual machines in order toallocate computing resources in an efficient, as needed fashion.Providers of virtualized computing systems include VMWARE® andMICROSOFT®.

Firewall 310 may be one or more specialized routers or server devicesthat protect managed network 300 from unauthorized attempts to accessthe devices, applications, and services therein, while allowingauthorized communication that is initiated from managed network 300.Firewall 310 may also provide intrusion detection, web filtering, virusscanning, application-layer gateways, and other applications orservices. In some embodiments not shown in FIG. 3, managed network 300may include one or more virtual private network (VPN) gateways withwhich it communicates with remote network management platform 320 (seebelow).

Managed network 300 may also include one or more proxy servers 312. Anembodiment of proxy servers 312 may be a server device that facilitatescommunication and movement of data between managed network 300, remotenetwork management platform 320, and third-party networks 340. Inparticular, proxy servers 312 may be able to establish and maintainsecure communication sessions with one or more computational instancesof remote network management platform 320. By way of such a session,remote network management platform 320 may be able to discover andmanage aspects of the architecture and configuration of managed network300 and its components. Possibly with the assistance of proxy servers312, remote network management platform 320 may also be able to discoverand manage aspects of third-party networks 340 that are used by managednetwork 300.

Firewalls, such as firewall 310, typically deny all communicationsessions that are incoming by way of Internet 350, unless such a sessionwas ultimately initiated from behind the firewall (i.e., from a deviceon managed network 300) or the firewall has been explicitly configuredto support the session. By placing proxy servers 312 behind firewall 310(e.g., within managed network 300 and protected by firewall 310), proxyservers 312 may be able to initiate these communication sessions throughfirewall 310. Thus, firewall 310 might not have to be specificallyconfigured to support incoming sessions from remote network managementplatform 320, thereby avoiding potential security risks to managednetwork 300.

In some cases, managed network 300 may consist of a few devices and asmall number of networks. In other deployments, managed network 300 mayspan multiple physical locations and include hundreds of networks andhundreds of thousands of devices. Thus, the architecture depicted inFIG. 3 is capable of scaling up or down by orders of magnitude.

Furthermore, depending on the size, architecture, and connectivity ofmanaged network 300, a varying number of proxy servers 312 may bedeployed therein. For example, each one of proxy servers 312 may beresponsible for communicating with remote network management platform320 regarding a portion of managed network 300. Alternatively oradditionally, sets of two or more proxy servers may be assigned to sucha portion of managed network 300 for purposes of load balancing,redundancy, and/or high availability.

Remote network management platform 320 is a hosted environment thatprovides aPaaS services to users, particularly to the operators ofmanaged network 300. These services may take the form of web-basedportals, for instance. Thus, a user can securely access remote networkmanagement platform 320 from, for instance, client devices 302, orpotentially from a client device outside of managed network 300. By wayof the web-based portals, users may design, test, and deployapplications, generate reports, view analytics, and perform other tasks.

As shown in FIG. 3, remote network management platform 320 includes fourcomputational instances 322, 324, 326, and 328. Each of these instancesmay represent one or more server devices and/or one or more databasesthat provide a set of web portals, services, and applications (e.g., awholly-functioning aPaaS system) available to a particular customer. Insome cases, a single customer may use multiple computational instances.For example, managed network 300 may be an enterprise customer of remotenetwork management platform 320, and may use computational instances322, 324, and 326. The reason for providing multiple instances to onecustomer is that the customer may wish to independently develop, test,and deploy its applications and services. Thus, computational instance322 may be dedicated to application development related to managednetwork 300, computational instance 324 may be dedicated to testingthese applications, and computational instance 326 may be dedicated tothe live operation of tested applications and services. A computationalinstance may also be referred to as a hosted instance, a remoteinstance, a customer instance, or by some other designation. Anyapplication deployed onto a computational instance may be a scopedapplication, in that its access to databases within the computationalinstance can be restricted to certain elements therein (e.g., one ormore particular database tables or particular rows with one or moredatabase tables).

For purpose of clarity, the disclosure herein refers to the physicalhardware, software, and arrangement thereof as a “computationalinstance.” Note that users may colloquially refer to the graphical userinterfaces provided thereby as “instances.” But unless it is definedotherwise herein, a “computational instance” is a computing systemdisposed within remote network management platform 320.

The multi-instance architecture of remote network management platform320 is in contrast to conventional multi-tenant architectures, overwhich multi-instance architectures exhibit several advantages. Inmulti-tenant architectures, data from different customers (e.g.,enterprises) are comingled in a single database. While these customers'data are separate from one another, the separation is enforced by thesoftware that operates the single database. As a consequence, a securitybreach in this system may impact all customers' data, creatingadditional risk, especially for entities subject to governmental,healthcare, and/or financial regulation. Furthermore, any databaseoperations that impact one customer will likely impact all customerssharing that database. Thus, if there is an outage due to hardware orsoftware errors, this outage affects all such customers. Likewise, ifthe database is to be upgraded to meet the needs of one customer, itwill be unavailable to all customers during the upgrade process. Often,such maintenance windows will be long, due to the size of the shareddatabase.

In contrast, the multi-instance architecture provides each customer withits own database in a dedicated computing instance. This preventscomingling of customer data, and allows each instance to beindependently managed. For example, when one customer's instanceexperiences an outage due to errors or an upgrade, other computationalinstances are not impacted. Maintenance down time is limited because thedatabase only contains one customer's data. Further, the simpler designof the multi-instance architecture allows redundant copies of eachcustomer database and instance to be deployed in a geographicallydiverse fashion. This facilitates high availability, where the liveversion of the customer's instance can be moved when faults are detectedor maintenance is being performed.

In some embodiments, remote network management platform 320 may includeone or more central instances, controlled by the entity that operatesthis platform. Like a computational instance, a central instance mayinclude some number of physical or virtual servers and database devices.Such a central instance may serve as a repository for data that can beshared amongst at least some of the computational instances. Forinstance, definitions of common security threats that could occur on thecomputational instances, software packages that are commonly discoveredon the computational instances, and/or an application store forapplications that can be deployed to the computational instances mayreside in a central instance. Computational instances may communicatewith central instances by way of well-defined interfaces in order toobtain this data.

In order to support multiple computational instances in an efficientfashion, remote network management platform 320 may implement aplurality of these instances on a single hardware platform. For example,when the aPaaS system is implemented on a server cluster such as servercluster 200, it may operate a virtual machine that dedicates varyingamounts of computational, storage, and communication resources toinstances. But full virtualization of server cluster 200 might not benecessary, and other mechanisms may be used to separate instances. Insome examples, each instance may have a dedicated account and one ormore dedicated databases on server cluster 200. Alternatively,computational instance 322 may span multiple physical devices.

In some cases, a single server cluster of remote network managementplatform 320 may support multiple independent enterprises. Furthermore,as described below, remote network management platform 320 may includemultiple server clusters deployed in geographically diverse data centersin order to facilitate load balancing, redundancy, and/or highavailability.

Third-party networks 340 may be remote server devices (e.g., a pluralityof server clusters such as server cluster 200) that can be used foroutsourced computational, data storage, communication, and servicehosting operations. These servers may be virtualized (i.e., the serversmay be virtual machines). Examples of third-party networks 340 mayinclude AMAZON WEB SERVICES® and MICROSOFT® AZURE®. Like remote networkmanagement platform 320, multiple server clusters supporting third-partynetworks 340 may be deployed at geographically diverse locations forpurposes of load balancing, redundancy, and/or high availability.

Managed network 300 may use one or more of third-party networks 340 todeploy applications and services to its clients and customers. Forinstance, if managed network 300 provides online music streamingservices, third-party networks 340 may store the music files and provideweb interface and streaming capabilities. In this way, the enterprise ofmanaged network 300 does not have to build and maintain its own serversfor these operations.

Remote network management platform 320 may include modules thatintegrate with third-party networks 340 to expose virtual machines andmanaged services therein to managed network 300. The modules may allowusers to request virtual resources and provide flexible reporting forthird-party networks 340. In order to establish this functionality, auser from managed network 300 might first establish an account withthird-party networks 340, and request a set of associated resources.Then, the user may enter the account information into the appropriatemodules of remote network management platform 320. These modules maythen automatically discover the manageable resources in the account, andalso provide reports related to usage, performance, and billing.

Internet 350 may represent a portion of the global Internet. However,Internet 350 may alternatively represent a different type of network,such as a private wide-area or local-area packet-switched network.

FIG. 4 further illustrates the communication environment between managednetwork 300 and computational instance 322, and introduces additionalfeatures and alternative embodiments. In FIG. 4, computational instance322 is replicated across data centers 400A and 400B. These data centersmay be geographically distant from one another, perhaps in differentcities or different countries. Each data center includes supportequipment that facilitates communication with managed network 300, aswell as remote users.

In data center 400A, network traffic to and from external devices flowseither through VPN gateway 402A or firewall 404A. VPN gateway 402A maybe peered with VPN gateway 412 of managed network 300 by way of asecurity protocol such as Internet Protocol Security (IPSEC) orTransport Layer Security (TLS). Firewall 404A may be configured to allowaccess from authorized users, such as user 414 and remote user 416, andto deny access to unauthorized users. By way of firewall 404A, theseusers may access computational instance 322, and possibly othercomputational instances. Load balancer 406A may be used to distributetraffic amongst one or more physical or virtual server devices that hostcomputational instance 322. Load balancer 406A may simplify user accessby hiding the internal configuration of data center 400A, (e.g.,computational instance 322) from client devices. For instance, ifcomputational instance 322 includes multiple physical or virtualcomputing devices that share access to multiple databases, load balancer406A may distribute network traffic and processing tasks across thesecomputing devices and databases so that no one computing device ordatabase is significantly busier than the others. In some embodiments,computational instance 322 may include VPN gateway 402A, firewall 404A,and load balancer 406A.

Data center 400B may include its own versions of the components in datacenter 400A. Thus, VPN gateway 402B, firewall 404B, and load balancer406B may perform the same or similar operations as VPN gateway 402A,firewall 404A, and load balancer 406A, respectively. Further, by way ofreal-time or near-real-time database replication and/or otheroperations, computational instance 322 may exist simultaneously in datacenters 400A and 400B.

Data centers 400A and 400B as shown in FIG. 4 may facilitate redundancyand high availability. In the configuration of FIG. 4, data center 400Ais active and data center 400B is passive. Thus, data center 400A isserving all traffic to and from managed network 300, while the versionof computational instance 322 in data center 400B is being updated innear-real-time. Other configurations, such as one in which both datacenters are active, may be supported.

Should data center 400A fail in some fashion or otherwise becomeunavailable to users, data center 400B can take over as the active datacenter. For example, domain name system (DNS) servers that associate adomain name of computational instance 322 with one or more InternetProtocol (IP) addresses of data center 400A may re-associate the domainname with one or more IP addresses of data center 400B. After thisre-association completes (which may take less than one second or severalseconds), users may access computational instance 322 by way of datacenter 400B.

FIG. 4 also illustrates a possible configuration of managed network 300.As noted above, proxy servers 312 and user 414 may access computationalinstance 322 through firewall 310. Proxy servers 312 may also accessconfiguration items 410. In FIG. 4, configuration items 410 may refer toany or all of client devices 302, server devices 304, routers 306, andvirtual machines 308, any applications or services executing thereon, aswell as relationships between devices, applications, and services. Thus,the term “configuration items” may be shorthand for any physical orvirtual device, or any application or service remotely discoverable ormanaged by computational instance 322, or relationships betweendiscovered devices, applications, and services. Configuration items maybe represented in a configuration management database (CMDB) ofcomputational instance 322.

As noted above, VPN gateway 412 may provide a dedicated VPN to VPNgateway 402A. Such a VPN may be helpful when there is a significantamount of traffic between managed network 300 and computational instance322, or security policies otherwise suggest or require use of a VPNbetween these sites. In some embodiments, any device in managed network300 and/or computational instance 322 that directly communicates via theVPN is assigned a public IP address. Other devices in managed network300 and/or computational instance 322 may be assigned private IPaddresses (e.g., IP addresses selected from the 10.0.0.0-10.255.255.255or 192.168.0.0-192.168.255.255 ranges, represented in shorthand assubnets 10.0.0.0/8 and 192.168.0.0/16, respectively).

IV. Example Device, Application, and Service Discovery

In order for remote network management platform 320 to administer thedevices, applications, and services of managed network 300, remotenetwork management platform 320 may first determine what devices arepresent in managed network 300, the configurations and operationalstatuses of these devices, and the applications and services provided bythe devices, and well as the relationships between discovered devices,applications, and services. As noted above, each device, application,service, and relationship may be referred to as a configuration item.The process of defining configuration items within managed network 300is referred to as discovery, and may be facilitated at least in part byproxy servers 312.

For purpose of the embodiments herein, an “application” may refer to oneor more processes, threads, programs, client modules, server modules, orany other software that executes on a device or group of devices. A“service” may refer to a high-level capability provided by multipleapplications executing on one or more devices working in conjunctionwith one another. For example, a high-level web service may involvemultiple web application server threads executing on one device andaccessing information from a database application that executes onanother device.

FIG. 5A provides a logical depiction of how configuration items can bediscovered, as well as how information related to discoveredconfiguration items can be stored. For sake of simplicity, remotenetwork management platform 320, third-party networks 340, and Internet350 are not shown.

In FIG. 5A, CMDB 500 and task list 502 are stored within computationalinstance 322. Computational instance 322 may transmit discovery commandsto proxy servers 312. In response, proxy servers 312 may transmit probesto various devices, applications, and services in managed network 300.These devices, applications, and services may transmit responses toproxy servers 312, and proxy servers 312 may then provide informationregarding discovered configuration items to CMDB 500 for storagetherein. Configuration items stored in CMDB 500 represent theenvironment of managed network 300.

Task list 502 represents a list of activities that proxy servers 312 areto perform on behalf of computational instance 322. As discovery takesplace, task list 502 is populated. Proxy servers 312 repeatedly querytask list 502, obtain the next task therein, and perform this task untiltask list 502 is empty or another stopping condition has been reached.

To facilitate discovery, proxy servers 312 may be configured withinformation regarding one or more subnets in managed network 300 thatare reachable by way of proxy servers 312. For instance, proxy servers312 may be given the IP address range 192.168.0/24 as a subnet. Then,computational instance 322 may store this information in CMDB 500 andplace tasks in task list 502 for discovery of devices at each of theseaddresses.

FIG. 5A also depicts devices, applications, and services in managednetwork 300 as configuration items 504, 506, 508, 510, and 512. As notedabove, these configuration items represent a set of physical and/orvirtual devices (e.g., client devices, server devices, routers, orvirtual machines), applications executing thereon (e.g., web servers,email servers, databases, or storage arrays), relationshipstherebetween, as well as services that involve multiple individualconfiguration items.

Placing the tasks in task list 502 may trigger or otherwise cause proxyservers 312 to begin discovery. Alternatively or additionally, discoverymay be manually triggered or automatically triggered based on triggeringevents (e.g., discovery may automatically begin once per day at aparticular time).

In general, discovery may proceed in four logical phases: scanning,classification, identification, and exploration. Each phase of discoveryinvolves various types of probe messages being transmitted by proxyservers 312 to one or more devices in managed network 300. The responsesto these probes may be received and processed by proxy servers 312, andrepresentations thereof may be transmitted to CMDB 500. Thus, each phasecan result in more configuration items being discovered and stored inCMDB 500.

In the scanning phase, proxy servers 312 may probe each IP address inthe specified range of IP addresses for open Transmission ControlProtocol (TCP) and/or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) ports to determinethe general type of device. The presence of such open ports at an IPaddress may indicate that a particular application is operating on thedevice that is assigned the IP address, which in turn may identify theoperating system used by the device. For example, if TCP port 135 isopen, then the device is likely executing a WINDOWS® operating system.Similarly, if TCP port 22 is open, then the device is likely executing aUNIX® operating system, such as LINUX®. If UDP port 161 is open, thenthe device may be able to be further identified through the SimpleNetwork Management Protocol (SNMP). Other possibilities exist. Once thepresence of a device at a particular IP address and its open ports havebeen discovered, these configuration items are saved in CMDB 500.

In the classification phase, proxy servers 312 may further probe eachdiscovered device to determine the version of its operating system. Theprobes used for a particular device are based on information gatheredabout the devices during the scanning phase. For example, if a device isfound with TCP port 22 open, a set of UNIX®-specific probes may be used.Likewise, if a device is found with TCP port 135 open, a set ofWINDOWS®-specific probes may be used. For either case, an appropriateset of tasks may be placed in task list 502 for proxy servers 312 tocarry out. These tasks may result in proxy servers 312 logging on, orotherwise accessing information from the particular device. Forinstance, if TCP port 22 is open, proxy servers 312 may be instructed toinitiate a Secure Shell (SSH) connection to the particular device andobtain information about the operating system thereon from particularlocations in the file system. Based on this information, the operatingsystem may be determined. As an example, a UNIX® device with TCP port 22open may be classified as AIX®, HPUX, LINUX®, MACOS®, or SOLARIS®. Thisclassification information may be stored as one or more configurationitems in CMDB 500.

In the identification phase, proxy servers 312 may determine specificdetails about a classified device. The probes used during this phase maybe based on information gathered about the particular devices during theclassification phase. For example, if a device was classified as LINUX®,a set of LINUX®-specific probes may be used. Likewise, if a device wasclassified as WINDOWS® 2012, as a set of WINDOWS®-2012-specific probesmay be used. As was the case for the classification phase, anappropriate set of tasks may be placed in task list 502 for proxyservers 312 to carry out. These tasks may result in proxy servers 312reading information from the particular device, such as basicinput/output system (BIOS) information, serial numbers, networkinterface information, media access control address(es) assigned tothese network interface(s), IP address(es) used by the particular deviceand so on. This identification information may be stored as one or moreconfiguration items in CMDB 500.

In the exploration phase, proxy servers 312 may determine furtherdetails about the operational state of a classified device. The probesused during this phase may be based on information gathered about theparticular devices during the classification phase and/or theidentification phase. Again, an appropriate set of tasks may be placedin task list 502 for proxy servers 312 to carry out. These tasks mayresult in proxy servers 312 reading additional information from theparticular device, such as processor information, memory information,lists of running processes (applications), and so on. Once more, thediscovered information may be stored as one or more configuration itemsin CMDB 500.

Running discovery on a network device, such as a router, may utilizeSNMP. Instead of or in addition to determining a list of runningprocesses or other application-related information, discovery maydetermine additional subnets known to the router and the operationalstate of the router's network interfaces (e.g., active, inactive, queuelength, number of packets dropped, etc.). The IP addresses of theadditional subnets may be candidates for further discovery procedures.Thus, discovery may progress iteratively or recursively.

Once discovery completes, a snapshot representation of each discovereddevice, application, and service is available in CMDB 500. For example,after discovery, operating system version, hardware configuration andnetwork configuration details for client devices, server devices, androuters in managed network 300, as well as applications executingthereon, may be stored. This collected information may be presented to auser in various ways to allow the user to view the hardware compositionand operational status of devices, as well as the characteristics ofservices that span multiple devices and applications.

Furthermore, CMDB 500 may include entries regarding dependencies andrelationships between configuration items. More specifically, anapplication that is executing on a particular server device, as well asthe services that rely on this application, may be represented as suchin CMDB 500. For instance, suppose that a database application isexecuting on a server device, and that this database application is usedby a new employee onboarding service as well as a payroll service. Thus,if the server device is taken out of operation for maintenance, it isclear that the employee onboarding service and payroll service will beimpacted. Likewise, the dependencies and relationships betweenconfiguration items may be able to represent the services impacted whena particular router fails.

In general, dependencies and relationships between configuration itemsmay be displayed on a web-based interface and represented in ahierarchical fashion. Thus, adding, changing, or removing suchdependencies and relationships may be accomplished by way of thisinterface.

Furthermore, users from managed network 300 may develop workflows thatallow certain coordinated activities to take place across multiplediscovered devices. For instance, an IT workflow might allow the user tochange the common administrator password to all discovered LINUX®devices in a single operation.

In order for discovery to take place in the manner described above,proxy servers 312, CMDB 500, and/or one or more credential stores may beconfigured with credentials for one or more of the devices to bediscovered. Credentials may include any type of information needed inorder to access the devices. These may include userid/password pairs,certificates, and so on. In some embodiments, these credentials may bestored in encrypted fields of CMDB 500. Proxy servers 312 may containthe decryption key for the credentials so that proxy servers 312 can usethese credentials to log on to or otherwise access devices beingdiscovered.

The discovery process is depicted as a flow chart in FIG. 5B. At block520, the task list in the computational instance is populated, forinstance, with a range of IP addresses. At block 522, the scanning phasetakes place. Thus, the proxy servers probe the IP addresses for devicesusing these IP addresses, and attempt to determine the operating systemsthat are executing on these devices. At block 524, the classificationphase takes place. The proxy servers attempt to determine the operatingsystem version of the discovered devices. At block 526, theidentification phase takes place. The proxy servers attempt to determinethe hardware and/or software configuration of the discovered devices. Atblock 528, the exploration phase takes place. The proxy servers attemptto determine the operational state and applications executing on thediscovered devices. At block 530, further editing of the configurationitems representing the discovered devices and applications may takeplace. This editing may be automated and/or manual in nature.

The blocks represented in FIG. 5B are for purpose of example. Discoverymay be a highly configurable procedure that can have more or fewerphases, and the operations of each phase may vary. In some cases, one ormore phases may be customized, or may otherwise deviate from theexemplary descriptions above.

V. Example Workflow Design Tool

Computational instances of the remote network management platformdiscussed herein may enable the specification and execution of workflowson behalf of their respective managed networks. A workflow is a specificsequence or series of tasks that, when performed, accomplish one or moregoals. In some cases, workflows may be represented as flow charts, withone or more starting states, intermediate states, and ending statesconnected by various transitions therebetween. Some states may bevisited zero times or more than one time. Also, some states may havemore than one possible next state, thus representing a decision to bemade in the workflow, either based on user input, automated input,information stored in a database, or by way of other mechanisms.Triggers may also be defined that cause certain transitions betweenstates, input to be acquired, or output to be produced.

Such a workflow can be implemented on a computational instance throughuse of a software-based workflow design tool. Such a tool presents theworkflow designer with options for defining the states, transitions,triggers, actions, input data, output data, and other characteristics ofthe workflow. The tool may utilize a GUI, and may be embodied as aseries of one or more web pages and/or web-based applications deployedupon the computational instance. Once completed and released, employeesof the managed network may make use of the workflow to carry out varioustasks in an organized and efficient fashion. Notably, the workflowdesign tool can be a so-called “low-code/no-code” solution, with whichdesigners either write very little program code, or no code at all, toimplement the workflow.

While the embodiments herein provide support for general workflowdesign, an example workflow design tool may be implemented based aroundspecific definitions of triggers, actions, and workflow logic. Triggersmay be used to specify conditions that start a workflow, such as achange to an entry in a database (e.g., the addition or updating of aconfiguration item in a CMDB) or according to a schedule (e.g., once perday or once per week). A trigger causes one or more actions to beperformed, and each action may be controlled by workflow logic thatspecifies the conditions that must be true for the action to beperformed. The action may involve changing the state of information in adatabase, sending a notification (e.g., an email) to a user, and so on.

In some cases, sub-flows may be defined and incorporated into aworkflow. A sub-flow may be an automated or semi-automated processincluding a sequence of reusable actions and specific data inputs thatallow it to be started from within a flow, another sub-flow, or script.Thus, sub-flows can be applied to multiple workflows.

As an illustrative example of a workflow, consider an employeeoffboarding scenario, in which an employee has left an enterprise forsome reason (e.g., the employee quit, got fired, passed away, etc.). Thegoals of the workflow are to: (i) look up and cancel any pending catalogrequests (e.g., equipment requisitions) opened by the departed employee,and (ii) reassign any open tasks (e.g., pending approvals, units of workthat are to be accomplished) assigned to the departed employee to his orher manager. In various embodiments, more or fewer goals may be present.

The workflow design tool may present the designer with a series of GUIpages that allow the designer to specify the workflow. Examples of suchpages are shown in FIGS. 6A-6J, while results of an automated test ofthe workflow are shown in FIG. 6K. Notably, these examples are merelyfor purposes of illustration and not intended to be limiting. Theworkflow design tool may be able to provide other GUIs includingalternative arrangements of information usable for designing workflows.

FIG. 6A depicts GUI 600. The background of GUI 600 shows a web-basedmenu for selecting features and/or applications supported by acomputational instance. This background is denoted as such by hashmarks.

For example, GUI 600 includes dialog box 602 in which a user has enteredthe search term “workflow”. This selects the workflow design tool fromthe bottom of menu 604. This selection is reflected by the text“Workflow Designer” appearing at the top of GUI 600.

GUI 600 also includes pop up window 606. Alternatively, window 606 maybe a pane overlaid on top of GUI 600 and not a separate window.Regardless, window 606 allows a user to initiate creation of a newworkflow by specifying its properties. In GUI 600, these properties arethe workflow's name “Offboarding”, the workflow's scoped application“User Management”, the workflow's description “Offboarding a user whohas left the company”, and whether the workflow is to be protected. Inalternative embodiments more or fewer properties may be specified.

The workflow's name may be free-form text entered by the user. Theworkflow's scoped application may be selected from a drop-down menu ofapplications or specified as global. As the workflow in GUI 600 islimited to the “User Management” scoped application, this workflow maybe considered to be part of this application. The workflow's descriptionmay also be free-form text. The workflow's protection specifies whetherit is modifiable (“none”) or read-only (“read-only”) by other workflowdesigners or users.

Once the user is satisfied with the information entered in window 606,the user may select or otherwise activate the “Done” button. Thisselection is denoted in FIG. 6A by this button being depicted with adashed line. Once the user completes the dialog of window 606, the nextphase of the workflow design tool, which allows the user to specify atrigger, may be displayed.

FIG. 6B depicts the first part of the trigger specification phase in GUI608. The top of GUI 608 specifies the workflow's name, “Offboarding”, asentered into window 606. This section of GUI 608 also indicates thatthis workflow is currently in draft form and is part of the “UserManagement” scoped application. GUI 608 further displays a series ofbuttons that allow a user to edit, test, copy, save, and activate theworkflow, respectively. In alternative embodiments, different types ofinformation about the workflow may be displayed, and there may be moreor fewer buttons potentially with different functionality.

Notably, hashmarks are omitted from the background of GUI 608 (as wellas all further GUIs) for purposes of readability. Also, the word“Trigger” is shown in a regular, dark color to indicate that a triggeris being specified, while the word “Action” is shown in a lighter colorto indicate that action specification is not taking place.

Pop up window 610 (which, like window 606, may be a pane overlaid on topof GUI 608 and not a separate window), may allow a user to specify atrigger for the workflow. As noted previously, two main types oftriggers may be supported and these types are shown in menu 612.Record-based triggers may cause a workflow to be performed when a changeto one or more specific database records occurs. As depicted in menu612, these changes may include creation of a record, updating of arecord, creation or updating of a record, and deletion of a record.Scheduled triggers may cause a workflow to be performed at one or morespecified times. As depicted in menu 612, such a schedule may trigger aworkflow daily, weekly, monthly, just once (at a specified time), or torepeat at a user-specified interval.

In FIG. 6B, menu 612 indicates, with a dashed line, that the user hasselected a trigger for when a record is updated. This may causeinformation box 614 to be displayed, which explains the behavior of theselected trigger.

FIG. 6C depicts the second part of the trigger specification phase inGUI 616. GUI 616 assumes that the selection shown in FIG. 6B has beenfinalized. Thus, GUI 616 depicts pop up window 618 (which, like window606, may be a pane overlaid on top of GUI 616 and not a separatewindow), that may allow a user to further specify a trigger for theworkflow.

Window 618 contains a number of drop-down menus, some of which may beautomatically populated based on the user's selection(s) from GUI 608.Particularly, trigger menu 620 may be populated to reflect the user'sselection of the “Updated” option, and run trigger menu 630 may bepopulated to reflect that record-based triggers are expected to just runonce. Nonetheless, the user may modify these selections in window 618.

Table menu 622 allows the user to specify a database table in whichrecords can be found. As shown, this table is sys_user, which is assumedto contain one entry for each employee in the company. Table menu 622may be capable of displaying a list of one or more available tables.

Condition menus 624, 626, and 628 allow the user to specify a conditionof records in the selected table that will cause the workflow to beperformed. This condition may be a state or a transition. For instance,condition menu 624 specifies “Active” to indicate that the records mustbe active, condition menu 626 specifies “changes from” to indicaterecords that change from active, and condition menu 628 specifies “true”to indicate any record that changes from active to another state.

In various embodiments, condition menu 624 may include entries forvarious fields in the sys_user table. These fields may include the phonenumber, building, city, department, address, manager, role, and so on.Condition menu 626 may include entries for “is”, “is not”, “is empty”,“is not empty”, “is anything”, “is same as”, “is different from”“changes”, “changes from”, “changes to”, and/or various other logicaloperations. Condition menu 628 may include entries for items that arecontextually based on the selections made for condition menus 624 and626.

Viewed as a whole, the trigger specification of window 618 indicatesthat the workflow is to be performed once when any entry in the sys_usertable is updated from active to another state (e.g., inactive). Thiswould indicate that the user is no longer an active employee of thecompany.

FIG. 6D depicts the first part of an action specification in GUI 632.Notably, at 634, the word “Trigger” is accompanied by a description ofthe trigger specified in FIGS. 6B and 6C. Further, this text is grayedin order to indicate that the trigger is no longer being specified.

As shown in menu 636, the user has the option of specifying an action orflow logic. The dashed line around the “Action” button indicates that anaction is being specified. Particularly, menu 636 displays severalcontexts for the action being specified. For example, “Core” actions aresupported by the computational instance as a default, while “Global”actions include all core actions, application-based, andintegration-based actions. Application-based actions, “App1”, “App2”,and “App3”, are actions supported by respective applications built ontop of the remote network management platform. These may include, forexample, various types of IT service management, IT operationsmanagement, customer service management, security operations, and CRMapplications. Integration-based actions include actions defined by orsupported by third-party applications integrated with the remote networkmanagement platform. These may include, for example, virtual chatapplications, messaging applications, and so on. Each of these built-inor third-party applications may explicitly expose interfaces (referredto as “spokes”) to the workflow design tool so that the workflow designtool can support workflows including data and/or functionality of theseapplications.

In FIG. 6D, the user has selected the “Core” context. Based on thisselection, sub-menu 638 is displayed. This sub-menu provides the userthe ability to select from a number of specific actions, such as “Askfor approval”, “Create record”, “Create task”, “Delete record”, “Log”,“Look up records”, “Send email”, “Update record”, and “Wait forcondition”. From these, the user has selected “Look up records”.Accordingly, information box 640, that describes the selected action,may be displayed.

FIG. 6E depicts the second part of the action specification in GUI 642.Pop up window 644 (which, like window 606, may be a pane overlaid on topof GUI 642 and not a separate window), may allow specification of atable in which to look up records and the conditions that these recordsmust meet. As shown in window 644, the action (as specified in FIG. 6D)is to look up records, and the table in which to perform this look up issc_request (a table that contains catalog requests made by users). Therecords returned from sc_request are those where the “Requested for”field matches the user identified in the trigger step (i.e., a userwhose active status has changed).

FIG. 6E also depicts column 646 containing pill-shaped user interfaceelements (“pills”) arranged according to the previously-defined triggeras well as the action currently being defined. These pills are capableof being dragged from column 646 to the rightmost selectable item 648 inthe condition field, as shown by the dotted arrow. User interface pillsin this context are typically oval-shaped items that refer to datapreviously specified in the workflow and may be automatically placed inthe user interface as this data is specified in the workflow designtool. In some embodiments, user interface chips or tags (with variousshapes) may be used instead.

Notably, the two pills under the “Trigger” heading in column 646 referto the user record(s) returned by the trigger (e.g., an entry insys_user that changed from active to another state as specified in FIG.6C) and the table upon which the trigger operates (e.g., sys_user asspecified in FIG. 6C). The two pills under the “Action” heading incolumn 646 refer to the records found by the action being defined inFIG. 6E, as well as the table in which these records are located (e.g.,sc_request).

The user interface elements, such as the pills in column 646, are asignificant convenience for the user specifying the workflow, as theyallow the user to easily include a reference to data or tablespreviously specified or referred to in the workflow. In this way, theuser does not need to type in a specific reference to this information,and need only drag and drop a pill instead.

Once the user is satisfied with the information entered in window 644,the user may select or otherwise activate the “Done” button. Thisselection is denoted in FIG. 6E by this button being depicted with adashed line. Once the user completes the dialog of window 644, the nextphase of the workflow design tool, which allows the user to specify flowlogic for the action, may be displayed.

FIG. 6F depicts flow logic specification in GUI 650. Flow logic may betied to an action, and specifies how the action is to be carried out.Notably, at 652 the word “Action” is annotated with a description of theaction specified in FIGS. 6D and 6E.

Pop up window 654 may allow specification of whether the workflowoperates on some or all items returned by the action specified in FIGS.6D and 6E. The “Flow Logic” button is depicted with a dashed line toshow that flow logic, rather than an action, is being specified. In thiscase, the selections made in window 654 indicate that the workflowoperates on all items returned from the query specified in FIG. 6E.Notably, the “1. [sc_request] Records” value in the “From” field ofwindow 654 indicates that the flow logic is to be applied to the outputof Action 1, specified at 652. Notably, the value of the “From” fieldmay be populated by a pill dragged and dropped from a column containingsuch pills. This column is not shown in FIG. 6F for purposes ofsimplicity, but may resemble column 646 of FIG. 6E.

Once the user is satisfied with the information entered in window 654,the user may select or otherwise activate the “Done” button. Thisselection is denoted in FIG. 6F by this button being depicted with adashed line. Once the user completes the dialog of window 654, the nextphase of the workflow design tool, which allows the user to specify asub-action for the flow logic, may be displayed.

FIG. 6G depicts a sub-action specification in GUI 656. Notably, at 658,the word “Action” is accompanied by an updated description of the actionand flow logic specified in FIGS. 6D, 6E, and 6F. Further, this text isgrayed in order to indicate that the flow logic is no longer beingspecified. Notably, the sub-action specification once again displaysmenu 636 and sub-menu 638, this time with “Core” and “Update record”selected. Thus, GUI 656 depicts the user specifying that records will beupdated for each item returned by the action defined in FIGS. 6D and 6E.

FIG. 6H continues this sub-action specification in GUI 660. Pop upwindow 662, may allow specification of actions to be taken on itemsreturned by the flow logic specified in FIG. 6F. Particularly, theoptions shown in window 662 indicate that, for each record in thesys_user table that is returned by the trigger, any record in thesc_request table that was requested for the same user will be updated.The user also specifies two fields that are to be updated for matchingrecords. The “Request state” field is to be updated to “Closedcancelled” to cancel the departed employee's pending catalog requests.The “Comments” field is also updated to “User no longer active in thesystem” to indicate why the request was cancelled.

Notably, the value of the “Record” field may be populated by a pilldragged and dropped from a column containing such pills. This column isnot shown in FIG. 6H for purposes of simplicity, but may resemble column646 of FIG. 6E.

Once the user is satisfied with the information entered in window 662,the user may select or otherwise activate the “Done” button. Thisselection is denoted in FIG. 6H by this button being depicted with adashed line.

FIG. 6I shows GUI 664 depicting the workflow defined so far. At 666 theaction specified in FIGS. 6D, 6E, 6F, 6G, and 6H is displayed. It isbroken down into steps 1 (looking up records in the sc_request tablethat were requested for the employee identified by the trigger), 2 (foreach these records, performing step/sub-action 2.1), and 2.1 (updatingthese records by closing them and adding an appropriate comment).

The rest of the desired workflow, as introduced above, also involvesreassigning all tasks assigned to the departed employee to that person'smanger. This further step is depicted in FIG. 6J. In order to avoid adegree of repetition, the GUIs for specifying the action, the flowlogic, and the sub-action for task reassignment are omitted. Instead,FIG. 6J depicts GUI 664 updated to show the complete workflow.

Notably, step 3 looks up records in the task database table (whichcontains entries for tasks to be carried out by employees) that areassigned to the employee identified by the trigger. Step 4 specifiesflow logic that, for each of these records, indicates thatstep/sub-action 4.1 is to be performed. Step 4.1 indicates that, foreach record identified in step 4, the “Assigned to” field is to bechanged to the manager of the identified employee.

In this way, arbitrarily complex flow-chart-like workflows can berapidly designed in a data-centric fashion. The designer need not writeany code, and is guided through the workflow specification by a seriesof GUIs that help the designer with appropriate menus and otherinterface elements. As a result, the designer saves a significant amountof time. In practice, experiments have shown that workflows can bespecified in hours rather than the days typically needed for manuallycoding the workflows in a high-level programming language (e.g., JAVA®,JAVASCRIPT®, C++, and so on).

Another benefit of this workflow design tool is that it allows aworkflow to be tested by the same GUI prior to deployment. FIG. 6K showsGUI 668, which contains the same information as GUI 660 from FIG. 6J,but also includes three columns reflecting the outcome of such a test.The “State” column indicates whether each step has been completed (inthis example, all steps were completed), the “Start time” columnindicates the time at which each step began, and the “Duration” columnindicates how long each step took to be performed, in milliseconds. Thisallows the designer to verify that each step is properly performed, aswell as to identify any steps that take an inordinate amount of time tocomplete. In alternative embodiments, other information may bedisplayed.

In the examples of FIGS. 6A-6K, a workflow is designed. The user personathat carries out such a process may be referred to as a workflowdesigner. However, actions may be designed in an analogous fashion(e.g., by way of similar GUIs) by a user with a persona of an actiondesigner. Thus, an action designer may define custom actions that can bepublished, and published actions can be selected and incorporated intoworkflows by a workflow designer.

VI. An Action Design Tool with Dynamic Outputs

An action design tool with dynamic outputs facilitates dynamicallyretrieving, during workflow design, a definition of an API supported bya remote service. Doing so allows that API definition to be used todesign the workflow to process and consume output from the remoteservice (e.g., values of data structure fields returned by the remoteservice). Common data formats, such as complex objects (JSON and/orXML), may be inherently supported. In many cases, this completelyavoids, or dramatically reduces, the need for workflow designers tomanually code parsing routines that transform complex objects or otherformats supported by the API into data structures supported by theremote network management platform.

The action design tool may also support dynamic outputs—the ability todynamically retrieve definitions of output formats from remote servicesduring workflow design. Then, GUI-based representations of the fieldscan be visually arranged to facilitate, during workflow execution,automatic parsing of received complex objects.

These techniques may be referred to as “introspection,” and represent anefficient mechanism for integrating remote services into enterpriseworkflows. In fact, the amount of time that a workflow designer needs tospend designing a workflow also decreases because the designer cansimply drag and drop representations of outputs from calls to the remoteservice API into other actions. This is particularly helpful becausemost enterprises customize the data that they store to and retrieve fromremote services (e.g., with specific fields). Thus, without dynamicintrospection of remote service APIs at design time, each enterprisewould have to develop specialized routines to support their respectivecustomizations.

In particular, these embodiments assume that a remote service has twodistinct APIs—a remote service API and a metadata API. The remoteservice API may be accessible by way of REST, SOAP, or some othermechanism, and may define ways in which structured data stored at theremote service can be queried. Thus, for example, a remote servicestoring a database table named “users” may make the content of thistable (e.g., values stored in its columns) accessible by way of a RESTAPI with a specific URL and set of query semantics.

The metadata API provides a definition of the structured data accessibleby way of the remote service API (e.g., database tables and/or columnstherein), as well as how to access this data. Thus, for example, themetadata API may have entries for each database table or otherstructured data accessible by way of the remote service API, as well asthe associated URLs and query semantics. Example metadata APIdefinitions can be provided in XML by the Web Services DescriptionLanguage (WSDL), but other types of definitions are possible.

In practice, one can first query the metadata API to discover thedefinition of the remote service API. Then, one can query desiredportions of the remote service API as needed. While these two APIs areconsidered to be separate for purposes of the discussion herein, theymay be logically combined in implementations.

A. Design and Execution Phases

FIG. 7A is an overview of the metadata action design, integration actiondesign, workflow design, and workflow execution phases as describedherein. In various embodiments, these phases may contain more or fewerproperties.

Metadata action design phase 700 allows a user to specify how to obtainthe definition of the remote service API by way of a metadata API of theremote service. Since the definition of the remote service API, as wellas the structured data provided thereby, may be unknown prior toquerying the metadata API, the user may also specify how to parse andstore a definition of the remote service API. For example, if the remoteservice API is defined in XML, the user may wish to parse this XML andconvert it to another data format for storage. Thus, the user carryingout the metadata action design phase may require some degree of codingskill. Regardless, the metadata action, once defined, is saved andpublished for use by integration actions as a helper function. ExampleGUIs that support the metadata action design phase are shown in FIGS.8A-8D.

Integration action design phase 702 allows a user to specify how toaccess structured data provided by a remote service API, as well as howto parse this structured data. In particular, the user may provide adefinition of a URL from which the structured data can be obtained. Theuser may also indicate that the structured data is to be parsed by themetadata action defined in metadata action design phase 700. But unlikemetadata action design phase 700, the user does not have to writeparsing code (although the user can do so if desired), because theparsing is carried out by the metadata action. Still, the user may needto be conversant in use of the remote service API. The integrationaction is also saved and published for use in workflows. Example GUIsthat support the integration action design phase are shown in FIGS.9A-9D.

Workflow design phase 704 allows a user to specify a workflow. Forexample, the user may define a trigger event that causes the workflow tobegin, as well as logical steps of the workflow (e.g., subflows,actions, etc.). One or more of these steps may incorporate previouslydefined integration actions. For example, an integration action definedin integration action design phase 702, when incorporated, may causeretrieval of the various types of dynamic output supported by the remoteservice API. A specific instance of this dynamic output (e.g., aspecific table or other form of structured data) can be selected. Aworkflow defined in this fashion may be stored and possibly activatedfor later execution. The user need not write any code and also need notbe conversant in the remote service API. Instead, the user can specify,through menu options of a GUI, structured data obtained from the remoteservice API and how to use it. Example GUIs that support the workflowdesign phase are shown in FIGS. 6A-6K and 10A-10C.

Workflow execution phase 706 may initiate manually or based onoccurrence of a workflow's trigger event. This may cause a workflowdefined workflow design phase 704 to be executed, with dynamic outputparsed in accordance with the metadata action and the integrationaction.

An example message diagram of metadata action design phase 700,integration action design phase 702, workflow design phase 704, andworkflow execution phase 706 is shown in FIG. 7B. Computational instance322 hosts a metadata action, an integration action, and a workflow. Itis assumed that the integration action uses the metadata action to parseoutput from a remote service API of remote service 710, and that remoteservice 710 supports a metadata API that defines aspects of the remoteservice API. It is further assumed that the workflow incorporates theintegration action.

At block 712, the metadata action is defined in accordance with metadataaction design phase 700. At block 714, the integration action isdesigned in accordance with integration action design phase 702. Atblock 716, the workflow is designed in accordance with workflow designphase 704.

When the integration action is incorporated into the workflow,computational instance 322 transmits query 716A to the metadata API ofremote service 710. This query requests the definition (e.g., theschema) of the remote service API. Remote service 710 provides thisdefinition in response 716B.

At block 718, the workflow executes. When the workflow reaches theintegration action, computational instance 322 transmits query 718A toremote service 710. This query requests specific content from remoteservice 710, such as a number of records in a particular table, or thevalues of a particular column in a particular table. Remote service 710provides the results of the query as structured data in response 718B.The metadata action is used to parse the structured data.

An advantage of these embodiments is that the workflow designer candefine the workflow at a high level, without having to be concernedabout how the structured data received from the remote service API isformatted or parsed. This allows workflows to be designed by users whoare familiar with the goals of workflows without having to write code.Instead, metadata actions are defined for the remote service API byusers with coding skills, and then reused across one or more integrationactions. These integration actions are, in turn, defined by users whoare familiar with the remote service API. The integration actions can bereused across multiple workflows. Thus, these embodiments facilitate therapid development of workflows, including reuse of actions thereof, in alow-code or no-code fashion.

B. Metadata Design Phase

FIGS. 8A-8D depict GUIs usable to carry out the metadata design phase.These GUIs are provided for purposes of example, and may containadditional or alternative graphical elements or screens, and may beprovided to the user in a different order. Ultimately, a goal of theseGUIs is to logically guide the user through design of a metadata action.In this case, the metadata action uses the metadata API of the remoteservice to define how to parse output from the remote service API.

FIG. 8A depicts GUI 800, which includes action outline pane 802,specification pane 804, and data pane 814. Action outline pane 802provides a listing of the steps involved with defining an action (inthis case a metadata action), with the shaded step selected. In FIG. 8A,the “Inputs” block is shaded, indicating that the input step isselected. The user may select other blocks to switch to different stepsof the metadata design phase, which are depicted in FIGS. 8B-8D. Whenswitching between input blocks in action outline pane 802, the contentof specification pane 804 may change accordingly. Action outline pane802 also indicates that the action involves dynamically obtaining thergb-hr.com remote service API schema. This indication may be textmanually entered by the user to name or otherwise refer to the metadataaction.

Specification pane 804 of FIG. 8A contains definitions of the inputs forthe input step. Each input may be defined by label 806, type 808,mandatory indicator 810, and possibly other options not shown. Label 806is a name for the input with which it can be referred. Type 808 is adata type of the input. For example, an integer, character, string,Boolean, or combinations thereof, may be supported. Mandatory indicator810 determines whether the input is required in the metadata action.Entries for type 808 and mandatory indicator 810 may be dropdown menuswith pre-defined options (e.g., integer, character, string, or Booleanfor type 808 and yes or no for mandatory indicator 810). Each input mayalso have an associated delete button, activation of which causes theinput to be removed from specification pane 804. As shown, input 812 islabeled “API_Table”, is of type string, and is mandatory. This input mayrefer to a table accessible by way of the metadata API of the remoteservice that contains a definition of the remote service API. More thanone input may be defined in this fashion.

Data pane 814 contains a hierarchical menu of data used by the metadataaction. Each step (e.g., inputs, REST, parsing, and outputs) may haveassociated data displayed below one or more indicators of the step. Inthe embodiments shown, the individual units of data are represented asobround shapes, which may be colloquially referred to as “pills”. Thesepills may be dragged from data pane 814 to various locations on inputspane 804.

FIG. 8B depicts GUI 800 with the REST step selected in action outlinepane 802. Thus, specification pane 804 includes graphical elements thatdefine a REST query. In particular, specification pane 804 includesconnection details 820 and request details 822. Connection details 820defines a base URL, among other options. This base URL,“https://api-gateway.rgb-hr.com”, refers to the remote service. Requestdetails 822 defines a resource path, among other options. This resourcepath can be appended to the base URL to address a specific unit ofstructured data available by way of the metadata API. Request details822 also indicates that the HTTP method is GET. Query parameters andheaders 826 specify further parameters that can be appended to theresource path, as well as value of headers in the GET request.

Notably, pill 824 referring the “API_Table” input defined in FIG. 8A canbe dragged and dropped into the resource path specification. This is aflexible way of referring to a particular table that facilitates themetadata API of the remote service.

FIG. 8C depicts GUI 800 with the parsing step selected in action outlinepane 802. Thus, specification pane 804 includes graphical elements thatdefine how to parse results of the REST query defined in FIG. 8B. Inparticular, input variables 830 define input to a user-defined scriptthat parses the results, and script specifier 836 includes a text box inwhich the script can be entered and/or edited.

Each of input variables 830 is defined by a name and a value. Forexample, the input variable shown in FIG. 8C is named “payload” and thevalue is defined by pill 832. Notably, pill 832 refers to theResponseBody parameter returned by the REST step. Pill 832 has beendragged and dropped into the value field, which indicates that the bodyof the response to the REST query (typically a JSON object) is to beparsed by the script. Script specifier 836 includes an example scriptthat parses the expected JSON returned by the REST query into anormalized format or schema (not to be confused with the schema providedby the metadata API of the remote service). This format may be a datastructure used by the computational instance to store arbitrary complexobjects or structured data. While only one input variable is shown inFIG. 8C, additional input variables can be created by activating button834.

FIG. 8D depicts GUI 800 with the outputs step selected in action outlinepane 802. Thus, specification pane 804 includes graphical elements thatdefine the output of the metadata action. In particular, variables 840(of which there is only one in FIG. 8D) defines a variable labeled“Output” and an associated value. This value is defined by pill 842,which has been dragged and dropped into the value field. Notably, pill842 refers to the schema parameter provided by the parsing step, andthus indicates that the output from the metadata action is the JSONoutput from the remote service as parsed into the schema. This providesa normalized format for the output.

In the context of FIGS. 8A-8D, other types of queries may be used inplace of REST queries. For example, SOAP queries that return structureddata formatted in accordance with XML may be used.

C. Integration Design Phase

FIGS. 9A-9D depict GUIs usable to carry out the integration designphase. These GUIs are provided for purposes of example, and may containadditional or alternative graphical elements or screens, and may beprovided to the user in a different order. Ultimately, a goal of theseGUIs is to logically guide the user through design of an integrationaction. In this case, the integration action queries the remote serviceAPI for a specified number of records from a specified table.

FIG. 9A depicts GUI 900, which includes action outline pane 902,specification pane 904, and data pane 916. Action outline pane 902provides a listing of the steps involved with defining an action (inthis case an integration action), with the shaded step selected. In FIG.9A, the “Inputs” block is shaded, indicating that the input step isselected. The user may select other blocks to switch to different stepsof the metadata design phase, which are depicted in FIGS. 9B-9D. Whenswitching between input blocks in action outline pane 902, the contentof specification pane 904 may change accordingly. Action outline pane902 also indicates that the action involves dynamically obtainingrgb-hr.com records. This indication may be text manually entered by theuser to name or otherwise refer to the integration action.

Specification pane 904 of FIG. 9A contains definitions of the inputs forthe input step. Each input may be defined with by label 906, type 908,mandatory indicator 910, and possibly other options not shown. Label 906is a name for the input with which it can be referred. Type 908 is adata type of the input. For example, an integer, character, string,Boolean, or combinations thereof, may be supported. Mandatory indicator910 determines whether the input is required in the metadata action.Entries for type 908 and mandatory indicator 910 may be dropdown menuswith pre-defined options (e.g., integer, character, string, or Booleanfor type 908 and yes or no for mandatory indicator 910). Each input mayalso have an associated delete button, activation of which causes theinput to be removed from specification pane 904. As shown, input 912 islabeled “TableName”, is of type string, and is mandatory. This input mayrefer to a table accessible by way of the remote service API. Also,input 914 is labeled “NumRecords”, is of type integer, and is mandatory.This input may refer to a maximum number of records to be obtained froma query of the table of input 912. More than two inputs may be definedin this fashion.

Data pane 916 contains a hierarchical menu of data used by theintegration action. Each step (e.g., inputs, REST, parsing, and outputs)may have associated data displayed below one or more indicators of thestep. In the embodiments shown, the individual units of data arerepresented as obround shapes, which may be colloquially referred to as“pills”. These pills may be dragged from data pane 916 to variouslocations on inputs pane 904.

FIG. 9B depicts GUI 900 with the REST step selected in action outlinepane 902. Thus, specification pane 904 includes graphical elements thatdefine a REST query. In particular, specification pane 904 includesconnection details 920 and request details 922. Connection details 920defines a base URL, among other options. This base URL,“https://api-gateway.rgb-hr.com”, refers to the remote service. Requestdetails 922 defines a resource path, among other options. This resourcepath can be appended to the base URL to address a specific unit ofstructured data available by way of the remote service API. Requestdetails 922 also indicates that the HTTP method is GET. Query parameters927 defines further parameters that can be appended to the resourcepath. In FIG. 9B, this includes a parameter named “sysparam_limit”, withis used to determine the maximum number of results to obtain from theREST query. Headers 928 specifies values of headers in the GET request.

Pill 924, referring to the “TableName” input defined in FIG. 9A, can bedragged and dropped into the resource path specification. This is aflexible way of referring to a particular table accessible by way of theremote service API. Additionally, pill 926, referring to the“NumRecords” input defined in FIG. 9A, can be dragged and dropped intothe value field for the “sysparam_limit” parameter. This is a flexibleway of referring to a maximum number of records to request from theremote service API. By making these inputs dynamic, the integrationaction can be used to retrieve any number of records from any tableaccessible by way of the remote service API.

FIG. 9C depicts GUI 900 with the parsing step selected in action outlinepane 902. Thus, specification pane 904 includes graphical elements thatdefine how to parse results of the REST query defined in FIG. 9B. Inparticular, input variables 930 define input to a user-defined scriptthat parses the results, and script specifier 936 includes a text box inwhich the script can be entered and/or edited.

Each of input variables 930 is defined by a name and a value. Forexample, the input variable shown in FIG. 9C is named “payload” and thevalue is defined by pill 932. Notably, pill 932 refers to theResponseBody parameter returned by the REST step. Pill 932 has beendragged and dropped into the value field, which indicates that the bodyof the response to the REST query (typically a JSON object) is to beparsed by the script. Script specifier 936 includes an example scriptthat parses the expected JSON returned by the REST query into one ormore records. While only one input variable is shown in FIG. 9C,additional input variables can be created by activating button 934.

In some embodiments the parsing step shown in FIG. 9C is not necessaryand may be omitted. In these cases, the outputs step may operatedirectly on the results of the REST query of the REST step.

FIG. 9D depicts GUI 900 with the outputs step selected in action outlinepane 902. Thus, specification pane 904 includes graphical elements thatdefine the output of the integration action. In particular, variables940 (of which there is only one in FIG. 9D) defines a variable labelled“Output” and an associated value. This value is defined by pill 942,which has been dragged and dropped into the value field. Notably, pill942 refers to the records parameter provided by the parsing step, andthus indicates that the output from the integration action is the JSONoutput from the remote service as parsed.

Specification pane 904 also includes action 944 and table 946. Action944 indicates that the metadata action is to be used to query themetadata API in order to obtain a definition of the remote service API(e.g., the tables available thereby). Thus, the metadata action can bethought of as a “helper function” for the integration action. Table 946indicates that the TableName parameter is also dynamic. As indicated inFIG. 9D, the values of action 944 and table 946 can be selected fromrespective drop-down menus.

In the context of FIGS. 9A-9D, other types of queries may be used inplace of REST queries. For example, SOAP queries that return structureddata formatted in accordance with XML may be used.

D. Workflow Design Phase

FIGS. 10A-10C depict GUIs usable to carry out the workflow design phase.These GUIs are provided for purposes of example, and may containadditional or alternative graphical elements or screens, and may beprovided to the user in a different order. Ultimately, a goal of theseGUIs is to logically guide the user through design of a workflow. Inthis case, the workflow includes the integration action to query theremote service API for a specified number of records from a specifiedtable. During workflow design, the user can dynamically determine thetables available from the remote service API, and can drag and droppills representing the output of integration action queries intosubsequent steps of the workflow.

Notably, the workflow of FIGS. 10A-10C is more focused than the general,introductory workflow of FIGS. 6A-6K. Thus, the workflow of FIGS.10A-10C may include additional steps and features not shown.Particularly, any features present in workflow of FIGS. 6A-6K can beadded to the workflow of FIGS. 10A-10C.

FIG. 10A depicts GUI 1000, which includes workflow pane 1002 and datapane 1004. Workflow pane 1002 provides an outline of parts of aworkflow, and may include buttons or other graphical elements (notshown) that allows a user to add, remove and/or edit any of these parts.For example, trigger 1006 indicates that the workflow is to executedaily at 11 am.

Trigger 1006 is followed by an enumerated listing of actions 1008.Action 1 involves invoking the integration action (e.g., defined asshown in FIGS. 9A-9D). This integration action transmits a REST queryrequesting a particular number of records from a particular tableaccessible by way of the remote service API. Action 2 involves loggingat least some information. This information may be, for example, thename of the table queried among other possibilities. Action 3 defines aloop over a subflow. The loop involves performing the subflow's actionson each of the records returned by action 1. Action 3.1 is within thesubflow (e.g., any action enumerated as 3.x may be considered to bewithin the subflow of action 3). As will be described below, action 3.1logs specific information from each of the records.

Data pane 1004 contains a hierarchical menu of data used by the workflowpresented in the normalized format defined by the metadata action. Eachpart (e.g., the triggers and actions) may have associated data displayedbelow one or more indicators of the part. In the embodiments shown, theindividual units of data are represented as pills. These pills may bedragged from data pane 1004 to various locations on workflow pane 1002.

FIG. 10B depicts GUI 1000 with action 1 expanded. The user may haveactuated GUI 1000 on or near action 1, for example, or may have selectedaction 1 in some other fashion. Regardless, action 1 has been expandedto display its parameters.

Particularly, action selector 1010 defines the nature of action 1. Inthis case, action 1010 refers to the integration action of FIGS. 9A-9D.Action selector 1010 uses a drop-down menu for selection, so otheractions may have been selected instead.

Table selector 1012 specifies a table accessible by way of the remoteservice API. During the specification of action 1008, the metadataaction may have been triggered to query the metadata API of the remoteservice for a list of tables. The columns of the table selected by tableselector 1012 may be automatically populated in the hierarchy of datapane 1004. Notably, the part of the hierarchy under dynamic object 1014is populated with columns from the specified incident table. Tableselector 1012 uses a drop-down menu for selection, so other actions mayhave been selected instead. For example, FIG. 10B shows the event tableabout to be selected from the drop-down menu.

Records selector 1016 allows specification of the number of records toretrieve from the table specified by table selector 1012 during theintegration action specified by action 1. Notably, pill 1018 has beendragged and dropped into this parameter, indicating that the number ofrecords specified in trigger 1006 will be used in records selector 1016.

FIG. 10C depicts GUI 1000 after the event table is selected in tableselector 1012. Selection of the event table has caused the hierarchyunder dynamic object 1014 to be populated with columns from the eventtable. Doing so may involve querying the metadata API for a definitionfor the schema of the remote service API (or just the schema of theevent table). Also, the user has actuated GUI 1000 on or near action3.1, for example, or may have selected action 3.1 in some other fashion.Regardless, action 3.1 has been expanded to display its parameters.

The expansion of action 3.1 includes action selector 1020, levelselector 1022, and message selector 1024. Action selector 1020 indicatesthat the log action is selected, which is also reflected in the label ofaction 3.1. Other actions may be selected for action selector 1020 byactuating its drop-down menu. Level selector 1022 and message selector1024 are specific to the log action and may be replaced with otherselectors should a different action be selected in action selector 1020.

Level selector 1022 is a drop-down menu that allows selection of a loglevel. Its options may include error, warning, info, and debug, amongother possibilities. Message selector 1024 allows the user to specify amessage format for displaying in logs. In FIG. 10C, pills 1026 and 1028have been dragged and dropped into message selector 1024. Thus, each logentry may contain an indication of the log level (as shown by levelselector 1022), the value of the name column in the event record, thetext “Completion time”, and the value of the processed on column in theevent record.

When considered as a whole, the workflow designed in FIGS. 10A-10C wouldbe triggered at 11 am each day, and would retrieve a number of recordsfrom the event table accessible by way of the remote service API. Thenumber of records to retrieve would be defined in an input to thetrigger. Some general information would be logged (action 2 does notspecify these details nor are they particularly critical for purposes ofthis discussion). Then, for each record retrieved, content therein wouldbe logged in accordance with action 3.1.

Advantageous, if the workflow designer can change the table in action 1to a different table, and the columns of the different table may bedynamically presented as pills in data pane 1004. These pills(representing dynamic outputs of the remote service API) can be draggedand dropped into inputs of subsequent actions of the workflow.Consequently, the embodiments herein provide a flexible, configurablemethod of receiving and using output data from a remote service API, butdo not require the workflow designer to have to write any program logicor code to parse this output data.

VII. Example Operations

FIG. 11 is a flow chart illustrating an example embodiment. The processillustrated by FIG. 11 may be carried out by a computing device, such ascomputing device 100, and/or a cluster of computing devices, such asserver cluster 200 or computational instance 322. However, the processcan be carried out by other types of devices or device subsystems.

The embodiments of FIG. 11 may be simplified by the removal of any oneor more of the features shown therein. Further, these embodiments may becombined with features, aspects, and/or implementations of any of theprevious figures or otherwise described herein.

Block 1100 may involve generating and providing, for display on a set ofmetadata action design GUIs, options that allow specification of ametadata action involving a remote service, wherein the metadata actiondefines: (i) a metadata query to a metadata API of the remote service,(ii) rules for parsing a schema of structured data provided by themetadata API, and (iii) a normalized format for the structured data.

Block 1102 may involve generating and providing, for display on a set ofintegration action design GUIs, options that allow specification of anintegration action involving the remote service, wherein the integrationaction defines: (i) a structured data query to a remote service API ofthe remote service that provides access to the structured data, and (ii)an indication that the metadata action is to be used to represent aresult of the structured data query in the normalized format.

Block 1104 writing, to persistent storage, representations of themetadata action and the integration action.

Some embodiments may further involve: generating and providing, fordisplay on a set of workflow design GUIs, options that allowspecification of a workflow involving the remote service, wherein theworkflow defines a trigger event that initiates the workflow, andwherein the workflow incorporates the integration action; and writing,to the persistent storage, a representation of the workflow.

In some embodiments, the set of workflow design GUIs also allowspecification of a further action of the workflow that uses part of theresult of the structured data query.

Some embodiments may further involve: determining that the trigger eventhas occurred; and in response to determining that the trigger event hasoccurred, executing the workflow, wherein execution of the workflowinvolves: (i) transmitting, to the remote service API, the structureddata query, (ii) obtaining, from the remote service API, the result ofthe structured data query, and (iii) performing the further action onthe part of the result of the structured data query.

In some embodiments, the result of the structured data query isrepresented on the set of workflow design GUIs as a hierarchy ofselectable data items in accordance with the normalized format, and theset of workflow design GUIs allows dragging of one or more of theselectable data items into an input field of the further action.

In some embodiments, the result of the structured data query is a unitof the structured data representing columns of a table accessible by wayof the remote service API, and the integration action, as represented inthe set of workflow design GUIs, is configurable to select any one of aplurality of tables accessible by way of the remote service API.

Some embodiments may further involve, during the specification of theworkflow: receiving, by way of the set of workflow design GUIs, aselection of a particular table of the plurality of tables; retrieving,by way of the metadata query and from metadata API, a schema of theparticular table; and displaying, by way of the set of workflow designGUIs and in accordance with the normalized format, columns of theparticular table as a hierarchy of selectable data items.

Some embodiments may further involve: generating and providing, fordisplay on the set of workflow design GUIs, options that allowspecification of a second workflow involving the remote service, whereinthe second workflow specifies a second trigger event that initiates thesecond workflow, and wherein the second workflow incorporates theintegration action; and writing, to the persistent storage, arepresentation of the second workflow, wherein the workflow and thesecond workflow are independently executable.

In some embodiments, the options that allow specification of themetadata action comprise definitions of inputs to the metadata action,an address of the metadata API as part of the metadata query, a scriptto parse results of querying the metadata API, and the normalizedformat, and the script to parse results of querying the metadata APIincludes the rules for parsing the schema of the structured data.

In some embodiments, the options that allow specification of theintegration action comprise definitions of inputs to the integrationaction, an address of the remote service API as part of the structureddata query, and an output format for at least part of the result of thestructured data query.

In some embodiments, the remote service is physically distinct from thecomputational instance.

VIII. Conclusion

The present disclosure is not to be limited in terms of the particularembodiments described in this application, which are intended asillustrations of various aspects. Many modifications and variations canbe made without departing from its scope, as will be apparent to thoseskilled in the art. Functionally equivalent methods and apparatuseswithin the scope of the disclosure, in addition to those describedherein, will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the foregoingdescriptions. Such modifications and variations are intended to fallwithin the scope of the appended claims.

The above detailed description describes various features and operationsof the disclosed systems, devices, and methods with reference to theaccompanying figures. The example embodiments described herein and inthe figures are not meant to be limiting. Other embodiments can beutilized, and other changes can be made, without departing from thescope of the subject matter presented herein. It will be readilyunderstood that the aspects of the present disclosure, as generallydescribed herein, and illustrated in the figures, can be arranged,substituted, combined, separated, and designed in a wide variety ofdifferent configurations.

With respect to any or all of the message flow diagrams, scenarios, andflow charts in the figures and as discussed herein, each step, block,and/or communication can represent a processing of information and/or atransmission of information in accordance with example embodiments.Alternative embodiments are included within the scope of these exampleembodiments. In these alternative embodiments, for example, operationsdescribed as steps, blocks, transmissions, communications, requests,responses, and/or messages can be executed out of order from that shownor discussed, including substantially concurrently or in reverse order,depending on the functionality involved. Further, more or fewer blocksand/or operations can be used with any of the message flow diagrams,scenarios, and flow charts discussed herein, and these message flowdiagrams, scenarios, and flow charts can be combined with one another,in part or in whole.

A step or block that represents a processing of information cancorrespond to circuitry that can be configured to perform the specificlogical functions of a herein-described method or technique.Alternatively or additionally, a step or block that represents aprocessing of information can correspond to a module, a segment, or aportion of program code (including related data). The program code caninclude one or more instructions executable by a processor forimplementing specific logical operations or actions in the method ortechnique. The program code and/or related data can be stored on anytype of computer readable medium such as a storage device including RAM,a disk drive, a solid state drive, or another storage medium.

The computer readable medium can also include non-transitory computerreadable media such as computer readable media that store data for shortperiods of time like register memory and processor cache. The computerreadable media can further include non-transitory computer readablemedia that store program code and/or data for longer periods of time.Thus, the computer readable media may include secondary or persistentlong term storage, like ROM, optical or magnetic disks, solid statedrives, compact-disc read only memory (CD-ROM), for example. Thecomputer readable media can also be any other volatile or non-volatilestorage systems. A computer readable medium can be considered a computerreadable storage medium, for example, or a tangible storage device.

Moreover, a step or block that represents one or more informationtransmissions can correspond to information transmissions betweensoftware and/or hardware modules in the same physical device. However,other information transmissions can be between software modules and/orhardware modules in different physical devices.

The particular arrangements shown in the figures should not be viewed aslimiting. It should be understood that other embodiments can includemore or less of each element shown in a given figure. Further, some ofthe illustrated elements can be combined or omitted. Yet further, anexample embodiment can include elements that are not illustrated in thefigures.

While various aspects and embodiments have been disclosed herein, otheraspects and embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art.The various aspects and embodiments disclosed herein are for purpose ofillustration and are not intended to be limiting, with the true scopebeing indicated by the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: causing, via a processor, aworkflow design graphical user interface (GUI) to be displayed on aclient device, wherein the workflow design GUI comprises a menu ofactions available to be incorporated into a workflow; receiving an inputindicative of a command to incorporate an integration action into theworkflow, wherein the integration action defines a structured data queryto a remote service application programming interface (API) of a remoteservice that provides access to structured data, and wherein theintegration action defines an indication that a metadata action is to beperformed to query a metadata API for a schema of a result of thestructured data query to present the result of the structured data queryin a normalized format based on the schema of the result of thestructured data query; and writing, via the processor, a representationof the workflow to a persistent storage, wherein the workflow comprisesthe integration action to be performed based on a trigger.
 2. The methodof claim 1, further comprising causing the result of the structured dataquery to be displayed on the workflow design GUI in the normalizedformat upon receiving the input indicative of the command to incorporatethe integration action into the workflow.
 3. The method of claim 1,further comprising causing a menu to be displayed on the workflow designGUI, wherein the menu comprises a plurality of integration actionsselectable for incorporation into the workflow, and wherein the inputindicative of the command to incorporate the integration action into theworkflow is received via the menu.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein theintegration action defines a list of tables to be retrieved, and whereinthe method further comprises querying the metadata API for the list oftables in response to receiving the input indicative of the command toincorporate the integration action into the workflow.
 5. The method ofclaim 4, further comprising causing a first menu to be displayed on theworkflow design GUI, wherein the first menu comprises the list oftables, and wherein each table of the list of tables is selectable forincorporation into the workflow.
 6. The method of claim 5, furthercomprising receiving an additional input to retrieve a table from thelist of tables and presenting a second menu comprising a plurality ofadditional actions to be performed with respect to the table from thelist of tables.
 7. The method of claim 6, further comprising queryingthe metadata API for a particular schema of the table from the list oftables in response to receiving the additional input and presenting dataitems selectable for incorporation into the workflow for each additionalaction of the plurality of additional actions based on the particularschema of the table from the list of tables.
 8. The method of claim 6,further comprising receiving a further input indicative of a selectionof an additional action of the plurality of additional actions such thatthe workflow comprises the additional action of the plurality ofadditional actions to be performed on the table from the list of tablesbased on the trigger.
 9. A system, comprising: a processor; and apersistent storage accessible by the processor, the persistent storagestoring instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause theprocessor to perform operations comprising: causing a first menu to bedisplayed via a workflow design graphical user interface (GUI) of aclient device, wherein the first menu comprises a plurality ofintegration actions; receiving a first input indicative of a selectionof an integration action of the plurality of integration actions to beincorporated into a workflow, wherein the integration action of theplurality of integration actions defines a structured data query to aremote service application programming interface (API) of a remoteservice that provides access to structured data, and wherein theintegration action of the plurality of integration actions comprises ametadata action to be performed to query a metadata API of the remoteservice to retrieve a list of tables and respective schemas of the listof tables for presenting a result of the structured data query in anormalized format based on the respective schemas of the list of tables;and storing the workflow in the persistent storage, wherein the workflowcomprises the integration action of the plurality of integration actionsto be performed in response to a trigger to retrieve the list of tables.10. The system of claim 9, wherein the operations further comprise:causing a second menu to be displayed via the workflow design GUI of theclient device, wherein the second menu comprises the list of tablesretrieved via the metadata action; and receiving a second inputindicative of a selection of a table from the list of tables via thesecond menu.
 11. The system of claim 10, wherein the operations furthercomprise: causing a third menu to be displayed via the workflow designGUI of the client device, wherein the third menu comprises a pluralityof additional actions selectable for performance with respect to thetable from the list of tables; and receiving a third input indicative ofa selection of an additional action of the plurality of additionalactions via the third menu.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein theoperations further comprise executing the workflow to perform theadditional action of the plurality of additional actions with respect tothe table from the list of tables in response to the trigger to retrievethe list of tables.
 13. The system of claim 11, wherein the metadataaction causes query of the metadata API to retrieve a particular schemaof data items associated with the table from the list of tables, andwherein the additional action of the plurality of additional actionscomprises a data item selected from the particular schema of data itemsassociated with the table from the list of tables.
 14. The system ofclaim 9, wherein the operations further comprise causing a pane to bedisplayed on the workflow design GUI based on the metadata action, andwherein the pane comprises the result of the structured data query inthe normalized format upon receiving the first input indicative of theselection of the integration action of the plurality of integrationactions to be incorporated into the workflow.
 15. A non-transitorycomputer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by oneor more processors, are configured to cause the one or more processorsto perform operations comprising: causing a first pane to be displayedon a workflow design graphical user interface (GUI) of a client device,wherein the first pane comprises a menu comprising a plurality ofintegration actions available for selection to incorporate in aworkflow, wherein a first integration action of the plurality ofintegration actions defines a structured data query to a remote serviceapplication programming interface (API) that provides access tostructured data, wherein the first integration action of the pluralityof integration actions comprises an indication that a metadata action isto be performed, and wherein the metadata action defines a metadataquery to a metadata API that provides access to a schema of thestructured data to present a result of the structured data query in anormalized format defined by the metadata action and based on the schemaof the structured data; causing a second pane to be displayed on theworkflow design GUI, wherein the second pane comprises the result of thestructured data query presented in the normalized format in response toa selection of the first integration action of the plurality ofintegration actions for incorporation in the workflow; and storing theworkflow in a persistent storage to perform the first integration actionof the plurality of integration actions in response to a trigger. 16.The non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions ofclaim 15, wherein the operations further comprise: receivingspecification of a second integration action of the plurality ofintegration actions that uses a part of the result of the structureddata query presented in the normalized format by the second pane; andstoring the workflow to perform the first integration action of theplurality of integration actions and the second integration action ofthe plurality of integration actions in response to the trigger.
 17. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions of claim16, wherein the operations further comprise: determining that thetrigger has occurred; transmitting the structured data query to theremote service API in response to the determination that the trigger hasoccurred; obtaining the result of the structured data query presented inthe normalized format in response to transmission of the structured dataquery to the remote service API; and performing the second integrationaction of the plurality of integration actions that uses the part of theresult of the structured data query in response to obtainment of theresult of the structured data query.
 18. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium storing instructions of claim 15, wherein theoperations further comprise: retrieving a list of tables via themetadata query to the metadata API; receiving a selection of a tablefrom the list of tables; retrieving a particular schema associated withthe table from the list of tables; and causing data from the table fromthe list of tables to be displayed on the second pane as a hierarchy ofselectable data items based on the particular schema associated with thetable from the list of tables.
 19. The non-transitory computer-readablemedium storing instructions of claim 18, wherein the operations furthercomprise incorporating a selectable data item of the hierarchy ofselectable data items from the first pane into the second pane to definea second integration action of the plurality of integration actions tobe performed in response to the trigger.
 20. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium storing instructions of claim 18, wherein theoperations further comprise: receiving an additional selection of anadditional table from the list of tables; retrieving an additionalparticular schema associated with the additional table from the list oftables; and updating the second pane to cause data of the additionaltable from the list of tables to be displayed as an additional hierarchyof selectable data items based on the additional particular schemaassociated with the additional table from the list of tables.